Caged.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your very interesting and intuitive comments. They are greatly appreciated indeed.

In reference to twelveoone question inquiring whether or not this particular poem is a journal dump...I did attempt to send you a private message in response to your query. However was unable to. Thus once more, I will attempt to answer your question.

No twelveoone, this poem isn't a journal dump. In fact, it was an attempt to express my exact feelings of loneliness and frustration on the day the poem was written. It had been several days that I had not seen the woman I loved at that time, and decided to express my feelings in a poem and email it to her. Thus, it is what it is.

In regards to the overdone punctuation, Yes, I do agree that there was an excessive use of commas within the poem. But, in my defense… due to my unstable emotional state at that time, the excessive use of commas, I believe, was meant to be overdone.

This of course, is not to say that chipbutty’s ‘line break’ suggestion was not appreciated and duly noted. Likewise, the same goes for vrosej10’s suggestion to try exploring some of the alternatives to full rhyme such as assonance and consonance. However, in my opinion, I do believe that the use of either one of these writing techniques would have drastically altered the true meaning of what I was attempting to express at that time.

But to confirm vrosej10’s observation, Yes I am well aware that rhyming patterns are difficult to handle, and that my use of them needs to be worked on. and I will diligently attempt to refine my usage of them.

As for my usage of clichés in my poems, well, I suppose all I can say in my defense, is that I must be ‘old school’ and love the use of clichés when it comes to my poems… and yes, stories. .yes I do understand that too many clichés can clutter up and diminish the meaning and readability of a poem. However, my belief is that a cliché can also give life to a poem and allow the reader to somehow relate to what they are reading. However, on the other hand, I’m not quite sure that ‘caged cyclone’ would have been an improvement in this case. But you can be assured that vrosej10’s comment was duly noted and appreciated.

.Finally, I do proofread my written material. In fact I use three different methods to do this.

1) The obvious spelling and grammar check (Even though some errors may tend to be overlooked.)

2) I read my material out loud, so as to check the ‘flow (As Maria2394 suggested.)

3) And finally, I have an audio document reader program that I also use to check the flow and the vocal intonations of the material I have written.

And no, I do not know of ‘ramona and lawrobbr’. However, I do understand how the posting of numerous poems at one time can make it tedious for some readers to get into an authors material, and will seriously heed Maria2394’s suggestion to only post 1 or 2 poems at a time.

And no, I will not allow know-it-alls to dampen my spirit or chase me off. For as I said, any and all comments are truly appreciated.

Very sincerely,

Jes_da_man

so is your posting overdone. Journal dump? I believed I asked once?

Never see comments from... on any others...tiring

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prior posters ramona and lawrobbr? They would post scads of poems at one time. It makes it tedious for some people (such as myself) to get into your work when you have so many in one day.

It isn't that bad, you just need to read more poetry and work on your technique. I won't give you vague advice about your energy and crap like that, just don't allow know-it-alls to dampen your spirit or chase you off.

The comment about too many commas was good advice. Having someone to read over your work is always a good idea. An even better one is read your work aloud, with all your commas intact and you will hear where some of your technical issues lie.

Also, you might consider posting just one or two at a time, give yourself more time per poem to make your work better, Just a thought. Keep writing, never give up!

is overdone, jes.

i can see why you chose to use so many commas, implying the pauses, but they don't make sense reading them. what would make sense is to create line-breaks where you've used the majority of those commas. it'll give you the pauses, without the distracting, and wrongly used, punctuation. like so:

I feel

like a caged animal

who longs

to be set free.

With you,

in our own home,

is where

I ought to be.

I left in the only two that have any place being there, and allowed the linebreaks to work for it instead. The shorter lines lend to a tighter, more restricted sensation, more 'caged', in this instance.

V's right, but at least you have a sense of rhythm and manage the rhymes - stepping beyond the obvious is something you'll get to. there are a lot of good examples out there.

Its a good attempt. Two points:

1) Cliches are the big problem with this one. If you remember hearing an expression, like caged animal in the first line, don't use it or spin it. Caged animal doesn't work as well as caged cyclone.

2) This one is a quibble. Beware of rhyming patterns. They are actually very difficult to handle well and people tend not to take poems with obvious ones as seriously as they should. Try exploring some of the alternatives to full rhyme such as assonance and consonance. Check my poem I Contain Multides for an example of assonance.